


Come From Way Above

by Clytaemnestra



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels, Angel Sam Wilson, Fallen Angels, Gen, Once I thought "Sam is an angel" I just couldn't shake it, POV Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:51:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4886089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clytaemnestra/pseuds/Clytaemnestra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Wilson is literally an angel. </p><p>This was going to be lighthearted but it ended up a bit angsty. Whoops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come From Way Above

When Steve Rogers crashes into the ice, they assign him as his Guardian.

"He's not gone," they tell him. "He'll need you when he comes back."

So he waits. Time doesn't mean much when you're immortal. He watches the entire country mourn for Captain America. Howard Stark searches for years, and his child grows up too fast, as he always will.

He sees James Barnes wake up and slowly become someone else. He can't stop it; he's not permitted to affect too much.

He can only wait.

*

He chooses a name for when he eventually goes to Earth; something trustworthy and solid. He decides on Samuel: _God has heard._

The name is for Steve, who needs someone to hear him, his slow breathing, the stubborn beating of his heart. It is impressive and constant, like the life of a forest.

Samuel listens. _I hear you,_ he thinks, though Steve is deaf to him. _I hear you._

*

When shrapnel tears Anthony Stark's chest to pieces, Samuel concentrates on keeping the metal away from the heart. Tony and Steve need each other for the best path, the shining one. They all know this.

He quietly suggests the electromagnet to Yinsen.

He sees that Tony will survive. He leaves him to it. 

*

Finally, they find Steve in the ice and SHIELD take him in. He wants to go then, but "Not yet," they say; and no matter how much Samuel wants to he cannot go.

Steve has so much trouble adjusting it's almost a relief when the aliens arrive, and after it's all over Sam decides that it's time.

It's Sam now. He's settled into it, just like he settled into Frederick, and Stephen before that, and Malachi before that.

When he's ready, he finds Steve running in his desperate circles, and they have their first conversation.

 _No attachments_ , he thinks. But he can feel it anyway. No one could watch a man for seventy years, willing life into him, and still remain impartial.

He ignores it.

*

Natasha is good for Steve, and he thinks she will take care of him when Sam leaves. The other Avengers will help; but Natasha especially.

She looks at him sometimes with narrowed eyes, knowing something is off, out of place. But Sam can't say "I'm actually a literal guardian angel." 

So he just smiles and looks back at her. _Nothing to see here._

*

It's very late one night when Steve finally cracks, but he's been distant ever since he saw the Winter Soldier's face. Even a superhuman can only take so much.

"Sam," Steve says brokenly in the doorway, so Sam throws himself at him in all the ways he knows how, wrapping him in his arms and his mind and his soul. 

He holds him and thinks _you'll be okay, you'll be okay_ at him as loudly as he can, because this is his purpose, even if all it means is that Steve can be thrown into harm's way again. 

Steve is sobbing into his shoulder, drenching him in the tears of the mortally wounded, and Sam is far too close to him now. 

He's compromised.

*

The metal wings aren't as good as his real ones, but they'll do, and they're fine for combat.

Humans don't tend to think of angels as violent. It's strange, because who else helped throw out Satan and his traitors? This is similar to that - exposing the rot to the sun and destroying it. 

Sam knows that James Buchanan Barnes only has one path where he recovers, and that there are hundreds where he dies or is lost. 

He hopes that Steve will find the right way for him.

*

Bucky returns in pieces, gradually re-assembling himself into the shape of a person. Steve is there every step of the way.

Sam watches them, helping when asked, nudging them all silently in the right direction, the one that sings with promise. 

He watches, and soon remembers that mortal love is fast and hot and burns brightly. It has never burned brighter than with these two. Clint and Natasha have it too, and Tony has finally found the place where he can fit with Pepper and Bruce.

 _Angels do not feel loneliness,_ he reminds himself. It's hollow.

*

He helps them tear down HYDRA completely, and then hesitates. He hesitates for a long time; months, even.

"No," he says eventually. It's not unheard of for a Guardian to tire and lay down their wings, especially when the required path has been found. Sam watches the feathers crumble and fade to nothing, eyes scrunched against the pain of humanity.

The others fade from his mind, though he'll always be able to see them. 

But they are no longer what he is looking for.


End file.
